1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to processing of sausage and more particularly to improvements in methods and apparatus for hanging sausage casings during processing and handling stages.
2. Description of Prior Art
The processing of link sausage generally requires hanging, draping or looping of links about a hook or rack device during smoking and other preparatory stages of processing.
A typical method of hanging sausage links involves the use of string or other similar type devices fastened about the converged casing section intermediate two links. Practice involves manually tying the string thereabout and thereafter subjecting such string and sausage links to further processing which renders the string extremely wet. This method is disadvantageous in that much manual labor is required to tie these devices about the casing and much dexterity is required on the part of the processor to hook or loop the wet string onto a hanger receiving device or about a rack for further preparatory processing as wet string loses its integrity and becomes soppy and unmanageable, and hence, hinders and interrupts the smooth flow of links during processing. Moreover, existing hanging members are conducive to cause contamination of the product. Cotton, for example, sometimes becomes moldy and fosters other forms of contamination. Furthermore, such members oftentimes lose strength or unravel and consequently drop the hung sausage links onto the processing areas. For example, links dropped in the smokehouse may burn up on the grates therebelow or become contaminated or incur "burn" marks thereon necessitating the product be scrapped. Product that is salvageable naturally costs more to manufacture due to reprocessing costs.